The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8

by J. R. Ward

  She rubbed her eyes. Okay, she had gotten over what had happened…as long as she wasn’t in a clinic or a hospital.

  Jesus Christ…she had to get the fuck out of here.

  “You okay to do this?” de la Cruz asked from right next to her.

  She swallowed hard, and manned up, doubting the guy would understand that what was spooking her was a pile of sheets on a ride, not the corpse she was about to see. “Yup. Can we go in now?”

  He stared at her for a moment. “Listen, you want to take a minute? Have some coffee?”

  “Nope.” When he didn’t move, she headed to the door marked PRIVATE VIEWING herself.

  De la Cruz scooted in front of her and opened the way. The anteroom beyond had three black plastic chairs and two doors and it smelled like chemical strawberries, the result of formaldehyde mixing with a Glade PlugIn. Over in the corner, away from the seats, there was a short table with a pair of paper cups half-filled with what looked like mud-puddle coffee.

  Apparently, you had pacers and sitters, and if you were a sitter, you were expected to balance your vending-machine caffeine on your knee.

  As she looked around, the emotions that had been felt in the space lingered, like mold left after fetid water. Bad things happened here for people who walked through that door. Hearts were broken. Lives were shattered. Worlds were never the same.

  Coffee was not what you should feed these folks before they did what they’d come here to do, she thought. They were nervous enough.

  “This way.”

  De la Cruz took her into a narrow room that was wallpapered in flocked claustrophobia as far as she was concerned: The thing was pint-size with almost no ventilation, had fluorescent lights that hiccuped and flickered, and its one window hardly looked out over a meadow of wildflowers.

  The curtain hanging on the far side of the glass was pulled across, blocking the view.

  “You okay?” the detective asked again.

  “Can we just do this.”

  De la Cruz leaned to the left and hit a doorbell button. At the sound of the buzz, the drapes parted down the middle in a slow swish, revealing a body that was covered by the same kind of white sheet that had been in the laundry bin. A human male in pale green scrubs stood at the head, and when the detective nodded, the man reached forward and folded the shroud back.

  Chrissy Andrews’s eyes were closed, her lashes down on cheeks that were the pale gray of December’s clouds. She did not look peaceful in her perma-repose. Her mouth was a slash of blue, her lips cracked from what might have been a fist or a frying pan or a doorjamb.

  The folds of the sheet resting on her throat mostly hid the strangulation marks.

  “I know who did this,” Xhex said.

  “Just so we’re clear, you are identifying her to be Chrissy Andrews?”

  “Yup. And I know who did this.”

  The detective nodded at the clinician, who covered Chrissy’s face and closed the drapes. “The boyfriend?”

  “Yup.”

  “Long history of domestic violence calls.”

  “Too long. Course, that’s over now. Motherfucker finally got the job done, didn’t he.”

  Xhex went out the door and into the anteroom, and the detective had to hustle to keep up with her.

  “Hold up—”

  “I have to go back to work.”

  As they burst out into the basement corridor, the detective forced her to a stop. “I want you to know that the CPD is conducting a proper murder investigation, and we’ll be handling any suspects in an appropriate, legal manner.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “And you’ve done your part. Now you have to let us take care of her and see this thing through. Let us find him, okay? I don’t want you pulling a vigilante move.”

  The image of Chrissy’s hair came to mind. The woman had been fussy about the stuff, always backbrushing it, then smoothing the top layer out and spraying it in place till it was like the top on a chess pawn.

  Total Melrose Place rerun, Heather Locklear golden-helmet time.

  The hair under that shroud had been flat as a cutting board, mashed in on both sides, no doubt from the body bag she’d been transported in.

  “You’ve done your part,” de la Cruz said.

  Not yet she hadn’t.

  “Have a good evening, Officer. And good luck finding Grady.”

  He frowned, then seemed to buy the I’ll-be-a-good-girl act. “Do you need a ride back?”

  “No, thanks. And really, don’t worry about me.” She smiled tightly. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

  On the contrary, she was a very smart assassin. Trained by the best.

  And an eye for an eye was more than just a catchy little phrase.

  José de la Cruz was not a rocket scientist or a Mensa member or a molecular geneticist. He was also not a betting man, and not just because of his Catholic faith.

  No reason to bet. He had instincts like a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.

  So he knew exactly what he was doing as he followed Ms. Alex Hess out of the hospital at a discreet distance. When she got past the revolving doors, she didn’t go left to the parking lot or right toward the three taxis parked by the entrance. She went straight ahead, walking between the cars picking up and dropping off patients and around the cabs that were free. After stepping up on the curb, she hit the frozen lawn and kept right on going, crossing the road and going into the trees the city had planted a couple of years ago to green up downtown.

  Between one blink and the next she was gone, as if she had never been.

  Which was, of course, impossible. It was dark and he’d been up since four a.m. two nights before, so his eyes were as sharp as they were when he was underwater.

  He was going to have to watch that woman. He knew firsthand how hard it was to lose a colleague, and it was clear she cared about the dead girl. Still, this case did not need a wild-card civilian breaking laws and maybe even going so far as to murder the CPD’s prime suspect.

  José headed for the unmarked he’d left around back where the ambulances were cleaned up and the medics waited on standby breaks.

  Chrissy Andrews’s boyfriend, Robert Grady, a.k.a. Bobby G, had been renting an apartment month-to-month since she’d thrown him out over the summer. The hovel had been empty of inhabitants when José had knocked on the door around one o’clock this afternoon, and a search warrant based on the 911 calls that Chrissy had been making about her boyfriend for the past six months had allowed him to order the landlord to unlock the place.

  Lot of rotting food in the kitchen and dirty plates in the living room and laundry all over the bedroom.

  Also a number of cellophane Baggies with white powder which—OMG!—had been heroin. Go. Fig.

  Boyfriend had been nowhere to be seen. Last sighting of him at the apartment had been the night before at around ten. Next-door neighbor had heard Bobby G shouting. Then a door slam.

  And records already obtained from the guy’s cell phone service provider had indicated that a call had been made to Chrissy’s phone at nine thirty-six.

  Plainclothes surveillance had been set up immediately, and the detectives were checking in regularly, with no news whatsoever. But José didn’t think there was going to be any from that front. Chances were good that the place was going to stay a ghost town.

  So there were two things on his radar: Find the boyfriend. And put a trail on ZeroSum’s head of security.

  And his instincts told him it would be best for everyone if he found Bobby G before Alex Hess did.

  EIGHT

  While Havers was in seeing Rehvenge, Ehlena restocked one of the supply closets. Which just happened to be outside of exam room three. She stacked Ace bandages. Made a tower of plastic-wrapped gauze rolls. Created a Modigliani-esque arrangement from boxes of Kleenex, Band-Aids, and thermometer covers.

  She was running out of things to organize when the door to the exam room opened with a click. She put her head out into the h
all.

  Havers truly looked like a physician, with his tortoiseshell glasses and his precisely parted brown hair and his bow tie and the white coat. He also carried himself like one, always calmly and thoughtfully in charge of his staff, his facilities, and, most of all, his patients.

  But he didn’t seem himself as he stood in the corridor, frowning as if confused, rubbing his head like his temples hurt.

  “Are you all right, Doctor?” she asked.

  He glanced over, his eyes unusually vacant behind his lenses. “Er…yes, thank you.” Shaking himself, he handed her a prescription slip from on top of Rehvenge’s medical record. “I…ah…Would you be so kind as to bring the dopamine to this patient, as well as two doses of scorpion antivenin? I’d do it myself, but I do believe I need to have something to eat. I am feeling rather hypoglycemic.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Right away.”

  Havers nodded and put the patient’s file back into the holder beside the door. “Thank you so kindly.”

  The doctor drifted away as if in a partial trance.

  The poor male had to be exhausted. He’d been in the OR for most of the past two nights and days, tending to a birthing female, a male who had been in a car accident, and a small child who had been badly burned when he’d reached for a pot of boiling water on the stove. And that was on top of the fact that he hadn’t taken any time off in the two years she’d worked at the clinic. He was always on call, always there.

  Kind of like she was with her father.

  So, yeah, she knew exactly how tired he must be.

  At the pharmacy, she handed the prescription to the pharmacist, who never made small talk and didn’t break with tradition today. The male went into the back and returned with six boxes of dopamine bottles and some antivenin.

  As he handed the meds to her, he flipped a sign that said, BE BACK IN 15 MINUTES and stepped through the cutout door in the counter.

  “Wait,” she said, struggling to hold the load. “This can’t be right.”

  The male had his cigarette and his lighter already in his hands. “It is.”

  “No, this is…Where’s the slip?”

  Greater wrath faced no female than that she obstruct the path of a smoker finally getting his break. But she didn’t give a crap.

  “Get me the slip.”

  The pharmacist grumbled his way back through the counter, and there was an inordinate amount of paper rustling, as if he were hoping maybe to start a fire by rubbing prescriptions together.

  “‘Dispense six boxes dopamine.’” He flipped the script to face her. “See?”

  She leaned in. Sure enough, six boxes, not six vials.

  “It’s what the doctor always gives this guy. That and the antivenin.”

  “Always?”

  The male’s expression was all c’mon-lady-gimme-a-break, and he spoke slowly, as though she weren’t fluent in English. “Yes. The doctor usually comes for the order himself. You satisfied or you want to bring this up with Havers?”

  “No…and thank you.”

  “You’re so welcome.” He tossed the slip back into the pile and beat feet out of there as if he were afraid of her coming up with more bright ideas for research projects.

  What the hell kind of condition required 144 doses of dopamine? And antivenin?

  Unless Rehvenge was taking a loooooooong trip out of town. To a hostile place that had scorpions like something out of The Mummy.

  Ehlena went down the hall to the exam room, playing spinning plate with the boxes: As soon as she corralled one that was slipping free, she had to go after another. She knocked on the door with her foot and then nearly dominoed the load as she turned the knob.

  “Is that all of it?” Rehvenge said in a hard tone.

  Like he wanted a pallet of the stuff? “Yes.”

  She let the boxes tumble onto the desk and quickly arranged them. “I should get you a bag.”

  “That’s okay. I’m good.”

  “Do you need any syringes?”

  “I have plenty of those,” he said wryly.

  He was careful as he got off the exam table and drew that fur coat on, the sable widening the great width of his shoulders until he loomed even from across the room. With his eyes on her, he took his cane and came over slowly, as if he were unsure of his balance…and his reception.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  God, the words were so simple and so commonly spoken, and yet, coming from him, they meant more than she was comfortable with.

  Actually, it was less how he expressed himself than his expression: There was a vulnerability in that amethyst stare, buried deep within it.

  Or maybe not.

  Maybe she was the one feeling vulnerable and was seeking commiseration from the male who had put her in that state. And she was very weak at the moment. As Rehvenge stood close to her, taking the boxes one by one from the table and putting them in hidden pockets within the fur folds, she was naked though uniformed, unmasked though she had had nothing hiding her face.

  She looked away and saw only that stare.

  “Take care of yourself….” His voice was so deep. “And like I said, thanks. You know, for taking care of me.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said to the exam table. “Hope you got what you needed.”

  “Some of it…at any rate.”

  Ehlena didn’t turn back around until she heard the door click shut. Then, with a curse, she sat down on the chair at the desk and wondered again whether she had any business going on the date tonight. Not just because of her father, but because…

  Oh, right. There was some good thinking. Why didn’t she push away a sweet, normal guy just because she was attracted to a total no-go from another planet where people wore clothes worth more than cars. Perfect.

  If she kept it up she might win the Nobel Prize for stupidity, a life goal she was simply panting to accomplish.

  Her eyes drifted around as she pep-talked herself back to reality…until they locked on the wastepaper basket. On top of a Coke can, in an unfurled wad, was a cream-colored business card.

  REHVENGE, SON OF REMPOON

  There was only a number underneath, no address.

  She bent down and picked the thing up, smoothing it flat on the desk. As she ran her palm down the face a couple of times, there was no raised pattern marring the surface, just a slight indent. Engraved. Of course.

  Ah, Rempoon. She knew that name, and now Rehvenge’s next of kin made sense. Madalina, who was listed, was a fallen Chosen who had taken to spiritually counseling others, a well-loved female of worth whom Ehlena had heard of though never met personally. The female had been mated of Rempoon, a male from one of the oldest and most prominent bloodlines. Mother. Father.

  So those sable coats were not just flash cash laid down by a nouveau riche climber. Rehvenge was from where Ehlena and her family used to belong, the glymera—the highest level of vampire civilian society, the arbiters of taste, the bastion of civility…and the cruelest enclave of know-it-alls on the planet, capable of making Manhattan muggers look like people you’d rather have in for dinner.

  She wished him well among that bunch. God knew she and her family hadn’t had a good time with them: Her father had been double-crossed and kicked to the curb, sacrificed so a more powerful branch of the bloodline could survive financially and socially. And that had been just the start of the ruinations.

  As she left the exam room, she tossed the card back into the trash and picked the medical chart out of the holder. After checking in with Catya, Ehlena went to registration to fill in for the nurse on break and to enter Havers’s brief notes on Rehvenge and the prescriptions given into the system.

  No mention of the underlying disease. But maybe it had been treated for so long it had been in only the earlier records.

  Havers didn’t trust computers and did all his work on paper, but fortunately, Catya had insisted three years ago that they keep an electronic copy of everything—as well as have a team of doggen transfer t
he medical files of every single current patient into the server in their entirety. And thank the Virgin Scribe. When they’d moved to this new facility after the raids, all they’d had were the e-files on patients.

  On impulse, she scrolled up through the most recent part of Rehvenge’s record. The dosage for the dopamine had been increasing over the last couple of years. And the antivenin.

  She logged out and settled back in the office chair, crossing her arms over her chest and staring hard at the monitor. When the screen saver kicked in, it went all Millennium Falcon light speed, a sprinkle of stars shooting out from deep inside the monitor.

  She was going on that damn date, she decided.

  “Ehlena?”

  She looked up at Catya. “Yes?”

  “We have a patient coming in by ambulance. ETA, two minutes. Drug overdose, unknown substance. Patient intubated and bagged. You and I are assisting.”

  As another staff member appeared to handle check-ins, Ehlena sprang out of the chair and jogged behind Catya down the corridor to the emergency bays. Havers was already there, quickly finishing what looked like a ham sandwich on rye.

  Just as he gave his clean plate over to a doggen, the patient came in through the underground tunnel that ran from the ambulance garages. The EMTs were two male vampires who were dressed the same as their human counterparts were, because blending in was mission critical.

  The patient was out cold, being kept alive only by the medic near his head who was fisting a bag in a slow, steady rhythm.

  “We were called in by his friend,” the male said, “who promptly left him passed out in the cold in the alley next to ZeroSum. Pupils nonresponsive. Blood pressure sixty-two over thirty-eight. Heart rate thirty-two.”

  What a waste, Ehlena thought as she went to work.

  Street drugs were such an unconscionable evil.

  Across town, in the part of Caldwell known as Minimall Sprawlopolis, Wrath found the dead lesser’s apartment easily enough. The development it was in was called Hunterbred Farms, and the setup of two-story buildings carried an equine theme that was about as authentic as the plastic tablecloths in a cheap Italian restaurant.